A home network system, which is able to control a Personal Computer (PC), peripheral devices, mobile phones, home appliances and the like installed or located within home, via one network, is configured to control every type of digital home appliances, such as a computer, a digital television receiver, a digital video player, an air-conditioner/heater and the like, by accessing a network constructed within the home via an Internet or a telephone line not only inside the system but also outside the system.
A wireless short-range communication technology is used for constructing the home network. Examples of the short-range communication technologies may include Bluetooth, Zigbee, Wireless LAN and the like.
Bluetooth is a wireless Personal Area Network (PAN) access technology, which is currently mounted in the most mobile communication terminals throughout the world. Bluetooth is used not only for audio-related communication services, such as wireless handsfree, stereo music streaming, One phone and the like, but also for data communication services, such as data communication, message exchange and the like between mobile communication terminals.
Bluetooth is increasing its usage range because of allowing free wireless communications among several devices within a relatively narrow area (10˜100 m) with low costs and low power.
The use of Zigbee communication is increasing for the purpose of controlling lighting devices existing on a network constructed within a home or office or home appliances such as air-conditions, TV receivers and the like.
The Zigbee communication also has the advantages in the aspect of implementing a wireless device control with low costs and low power, thus to be expected to be widely used for constructing a home network.
FIG. 1 illustrates a home network system.
As illustrated in FIG. 1, a wireless gateway device which can relay wireless LAN/Bluetooth/Zigbee communication is connected to an Access Point (AP) on a home network by a Wireless Distribution System (WDS) function of a wireless LAN, forming a wireless mesh networking on the home network.
The wireless mesh networking, unlike the conventional point-to-point and point-to-multipoint wireless communications, is a technique capable of providing network reliability and a wide wireless network service area even by less output, by virtue of having the same mesh type networking architecture of a wired network even on a wireless network. As illustrated, the wireless mesh network is constructed on a home network by establishing a connection between an AP and a wireless gateway device through the WDS function of the wireless LAN.
Also, FIG. 1 illustrates a home network which allows for data communication among Bluetooth devices, wireless LAN devices and Zigbee devices on a Zigbee communication network installed within home through a wireless gateway device.
In such type of home network, various types of devices within the home can transmit and receive control signals or data via a Zigbee-based communication. The various types of devices may be controlled by a Zigbee remote controller to be connected to one another via an external network, for example, an Internet.
Therefore, a user may control the various types of devices by accessing the various types of devices via the Internet from the outside. This may result in a remarkable increase in user convenience.
Upon constructing the home network using Zigbee as the short-range communication technology, a wireless network may be constructed more easily. Also, other communication devices except for the AP within the home network are not required for the wired connection except for power supply, which facilitates constructing of the home network.
FIG. 2 illustrates a connected relation of Zigbee communication.
As can be noticed with reference to FIG. 2, a plurality of devices 11 and 12 belong to a first network, a plurality of devices 21 to 24 belong to a second network and a plurality of devices 32 and 33 belong to a third network. The first to third networks may be PANs. Each PAN may be generated by a coordinator and formed as the plurality of devices participate in each PAN. Each PAN uses a unique identifier and channel, accordingly, a plurality of PANs may coexist on the same space.
For example, the devices belonging to the first network may be devices for home appliances, for example, a washing machine, a refrigerator and the like. The devices belonging to the second network may be devices for home entertainment, for example, TV, media player and the like. Also, the devices belonging to the third network may be user's portable devices, for example, a cellular phone, a tablet and the like.
Here, a first node 10 has to be connectable with the first, second and third networks, respectively.
However, the related art has not proposed any approach to communicate with a plurality of networks using the Zigbee technology. Especially, the Zigbee technology defined in the related art has merely focused on researches for low power and size reduction, without studying an approach for connection to a plurality of networks.